5 Things about Pascal Jansen

New York City FC looks all set to name Pascal Jansen as the team's next head coach. As we await Jansen's official unveiling as the next NYCFC manager, it seemed like a good time to dive a little deeper into the background and tendencies of a 51-year-old who was born in London, and formed in the Netherlands.

We know he's arriving from Ferencváros in Hungary, leaving the team in the middle of their Europa League campaign (and on the cusp of advancing to the knockout round with two group stage games remaining). And we know that he spent parts of four seasons in charge of AZ Alkmaar in the Netherlands, where he had a record of 96W-24D-42L, earning 1.96 points per game.

But what else should we know about Jansen before we see him patrolling the sidelines for NYCFC? Below is an attempt to call out and elaborate on five notable things about Pascal Jansen.

1. Started coaching career as a teenager

What's notable about Jansen is how young he was when he decided to start his push into professional coaching. After years as a player in the academies of AZ Alkmaar and Ajax, Jansen suffered an injury at age 17 that jeopardized his future as a player. Soon after, he would choose to go all-in on coaching and reportedly set his sights on obtaining a UEFA Pro Licence by age 35.

He carried a bit of a wunderkind vibe as a result of his early start but he followed through — he earned his UEFA Pro Licence by age 35, which made him at the time (16 years ago) the youngest person to attain that prestigious coaching license. Now at 51, he's got tons of coaching experience at various levels under his belt.

In interviews, Jansen has shared a number of his coaching influences, calling out Dutch legends like Johan Cruyff and Rinus Michels (named FIFA's Coach of the Century in 1999), plus Joop Brand, while also naming more contemporary managers like Louis Van Gaal, Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp, and Carlo Ancelotti.

His evolution as a coach began mainly with gigs at the youth or academy levels with Haarlem, Vitesse, Sparta Rotterdam, and PSV Eindhoven in the Netherlands before he progressed to assistant manager at AZ Alkmaar under both Arne Slot and John van den Brom. That set the stage for the Head Coach breakthrough with AZ in 2020 when Slot was fired for holding secret talks with rival Dutch club Feyenoord over their manager position.

Jansen stepped up and made a name for himself across his 162 matches at the helm of AZ, which turned him into a popular coaching candidate across Europe by the time he was relieved of his duties in January 2024.

2. Lengthy list of suitors

We know based on the Ferencvàros statement on Jansen's departure that City Football Group paid a significant sum – rumored to be around €1 million – to buy Jansen out of his contract and bring him to NYCFC for the 2025 season, reportedly on a four-year contract.

It's a bold move because, in Jansen, CFG has snatched up a coaching talent that has been linked with numerous prominent managerial openings across Europe. Jansen was previously connected with the managerial vacancies at all of the following clubs: Celtic FC and Rangers FC in Scotland; and Norwich City FC, Sunderland AFC, and Everton FC in England. There was also mention of Jansen as a potential candidate at Ajax in the Netherlands.

Those high-profile gigs didn't pan out, so he instead ended up with a 30-match pit stop at Ferencvàros in Hungary.

3. Leans on young players

As mentioned above, Jansen has tons of experience coaching at the youth and academy levels, and he's not shied away from using young players while a head coach, especially with AZ. The four different AZ squads Jansen managed had a combined average age of 24.1 years.

"Even before I became head coach, you could find me at academy games and training sessions watching the U13s or the U17s. That is just in my upbringing as a coach," Jansen told Sky Sports in a 2021 interview during his time as head coach of AZ Alkmaar.

That youth development background would seem to bode well for the young NYCFC side Jansen is taking over. In 2024, New York City FC was in a near dead-heat with the Red Bulls for the youngest squad in MLS – NYCFC's average age was 24.6, a hair behind the Red Bulls 24.3 average age. All squad average ages mentioned are according to FBref.com which lists an average age for each squad that's weighted by minutes played.

The experience Jansen holds coaching young players in Europe must have made him appealing to an organization that has invested heavily in its youth academy and in signing Homegrown teenagers to contracts with the MLS First Team.

4. Prefers a 4-2-3-1 formation

Across his stints in Hungary and the Netherlands, Jansen's preferred formation as a head coach has been the 4-2-3-1, at least based on the match logs for the 181 league and European cup matches for which Jansen has been in charge.

Across those 181 matches as manager of AZ and Ferencváros, Jansen has lined his team up in the 4-2-3-1 on 91 occasions. Jansen's other most-used formation has been the 4-3-3, which he deployed 66 times – unsurprising given the formation’s history with Dutch soccer, Johan Cruyff, and Total Football.

So in 87% of his league and European cup matches as manager, Jansen has stuck with a defensive back-four and has only had one striker up top. The wrinkle seems to be whether or not he lines up with two defensive midfielders, or if he opts to flank his striker with wingers while using the 4-3-3.

During the 2024 season under Nick Cushing, NYCFC predominately used a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-3-3 formation, so there seems to be a stylistic fit between the current roster and Jansen's preferences as a coach.

5. Veteran of European tournaments

Jansen has lots of experience managing games in the non-Champions League UEFA tournaments, especially the UEFA ~~Europa~~ Conference League. He managed a total of 51 European tournament matches (qualifying rounds and proper tournament play included), with his teams posting a combined record of 27 W-8 D-16 L across all those matches.

That record includes four qualifiers for the 2024-2025 UEFA Champions League with Ferencváros (they fell to Denmark's Midtjylland in the third qualifying round), plus 11 total UEFA Europa League matches (seven in the Group Stage, four in qualifying rounds).

The bulk of Jansen's European cup experience has been in the third-string Conference League, a competition in which he's managed 36 times while posting a dominant 21 W-5 D-10 L record, good for 1.88 points per match.

The most dominant European run Jansen put together was during the 2022-2023 Conference League. AZ reached the semifinals of the tournament. To get there, Jansen's team upset Maurizio Sarri's SS Lazio in the Round of 16 and then turned in what stands out as the absolute best performance from a Jansen team in Europe to advance past RSC Anderlecht of Belgium in the Quarterfinal round.

AZ lost the first leg 0-2 on the road in Belgium but followed it up with a dominant 2-0 home win in Alkmaar in the second leg, ultimately advancing to the Conference League Semifinals by prevailing 4-1 in the penalty shootout that followed extra time. Jansen's team was credited with 3.7 expected goals (xG) while holding Anderlecht to just 0.5 xG. AZ attempted 26 shots and put six on target and went a perfect four-for-four on their spot kicks to set up a meeting with West Ham United FC in the Semifinal (which West Ham ultimately won en route to lifting the Conference League trophy).

Bonus: Spooky & Sue

We're past the 5 Things limits here, but we can't go long on Pascal Jansen's background without also including a section about his mom, the late singer Sue Chaloner, who sadly passed away at age 71 in April 2024.

She was the Sue of Spooky & Sue, a pop duo that had three Top 10 hits in the Netherlands during the mid-1970s with other people's songs – a reworking of Bing Crosby's "Swinging on a Star," a cover of the Joe Jones song "You Talk Too Much," and a version of "I've Got the Need" by The Moments.

Jansen gets asked about his pop-star mom with some frequency and has credited her with delivering an important line that's shaped his career decision-making, saying "My mother told me: 'When opportunity knocks, it doesn’t send an email. So you have to be ready.'"

The opportunity to manage NYCFC has knocked and now Jansen is coming to manage in the United States after decades working up the coaching pyramid in Europe. He'll now be trying to add, and maybe swing, on a second star above the (redesigned) NYCFC club crest.